Tuesday, June 2, 2015

History: The Year is 1587

Kabuki Theater: Learning How to Be Entertained and Fooled -- A theater for the masses has grown up in Japan. To most people outside of Japan, it seems hard to follow, but all entertainment requires a baseline knowledge of cues to know when to laugh, when to cry and when to go for popcorn.

The English Poor Laws: Creating a Problem and Solving It Too! -- King Henry the 8th dissolved the monasteries that were the main institution that helped the poor, so Queen Elizabeth the 1st must create a government institution to solve the problem that the King had created in the first place.

The Devil's Advocate and the Promoter of the Faith -- The new Pope sets the number of Cardinals to 70 and establishes a new post "The Promoter of the Faith." He is to be the Devil's Advocate and that is exactly what they call him.

Kabuki Theater: Learning How to Be Entertained and Fooled

Kabuki theater has begun in the rural areas of Japan. It is theater
for the masses and consists of parts of well-known stories, moral
lessons and the re-creations of famous battles. The aristocracy has its
own form of theater, and kabuki draws elements from it. At first both
men and women are actors, but many of the actresses are prostitutes. The
women-only productions are rather sensual so these early performances
tend to break down into direct audience participation, if you know what I
mean. Because of this disorderly public conduct, women will soon be
banned from acting. Kabuki theater will eventually develop into
entertainment for the aristocracy and remain a men-only activity into
the modern day.
[1][2][3][4]

My Take by Alex ShruggedAll
theater assumes the audience possesses a certain baseline knowledge so
that the audience can react to standard visual and musical cues. Those
cues are often cultural in nature so an outsider might find them
difficult to learn. This is why foreign films can seem strange. American
film and TV have their own cues, though most people don't realize it
until the cues are missing. For example: we are used to hearing dramatic
music as two teenagers decide to investigate "that strange noise coming
from the basement". If we didn't hear the music we would feel less
inclined to involve ourselves in the story. We are trained by the movie
industry to know when to pay careful attention and when it is OK to get
popcorn. This goes for a TV news show as well. A news anchor can cover a
story, but change the subliminal cues to discount the importance of a
story or to cover up obvious flaws. [5]

The English Poor Laws: Creating a Problem and Solving It Too!

Famine stalks the land as the 1st of a series of food shortages
plague London. Inflation has priced much food out of reach of the poor.
In the past, helping the poor was left to individual Christians and the
monasteries, but after King Henry the 8th dissolved the monasteries, the
poor were on their own. Governments to this time see poverty as
laziness that requires punishment but these famines will make it obvious
that the poor need something more than prison. Parliament will
establish Overseers of the Poor, who are unpaid local officials
designated to identify the deserving poor and determine how much help
they need. In other words, after government destroyed the religious
system that helped the poor, the government creates the same system to
solve the problem that government created in the first place. The Poor
Laws of 1601
will become the basis of relief for the poor until the mid-1800s when
union workhouses will be the only recourse for the poor. That Malthusian
plan will be softened after World War 2 into something more
recognizable to the modern welfare recipient.
[6][7][8][9]

My Take by Alex ShruggedSo...
why did the welfare system change in the mid-1800s? The Reverend Thomas
Malthus wrote an essay on population control suggesting that if life is
easy then people use too many resources which leads to famine and
death. The English Parliament changed the Poor Laws in the mid-1800s so
that the poor would not fill the country with useless dependents. (Can
you say "Darwinism" and eugenics?) Thus union workhouses became
punishment houses. Charles Dickens criticized the union workhouses, and
Poor Laws in his famous story, "A Christmas Carol"...

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.

The Devil's Advocate and the Promoter of the Faith

Pope Sextus the 5th fixes the number of Cardinals to 70, passes a law
against usury... again... and establishes the office of the Promoter of
the Faith. The job of the Promoter of the Faith is to review all
applications for beatification and sainthood and then give reasons why
these applications should be denied. He acts as "The Devil's Advocate"
and this is the first time this phrase comes into use.
[11][12]

My Take by Alex ShruggedSetting
the number of Cardinals to 70 is a reference to the Bible verse where
70 men gather as a court to decide on religious issues. Within some
Jewish circles, people hope for the re-establishment of the Great
Sanhedrin. It is group of 70 religious scholars who decide issues for
the Jewish people. The last time such a group was gathered was during
the time of Napoleon. Hitler also gathered a group of 3 rabbis to get a
judgement on whether the Turkish Karaites are Jewish. The rabbis ruled
that they were not Jewish, so the Karaites were saved. [13][14]